ABSTRACT

This chapter highlights a few instances of the development of the Syriac lexicon. The 'late platonist' commentators of Athens and Alexandria preserved much of the Platonist, Peripatetic, and Stoic teaching of an earlier age within a well-defined and institutionalized pedagogical context. The Syriac translations of Aristotle could no more be read without a knowledgeable teacher as guide than could the Greek originals. Sergius represents a pioneering effort in Syriac lexicography as he sought to carve out a new technical language with which to express the concepts he was writing about. Many contributors to the Syriac philosophical tradition read Aristotle's De Interpretatione, supposedly a book about 'combinations of simple names', as being about grammar rather than about logic as such. Only a truly comprehensive analysis of Syriac texts on logic can provide a detailed view of the development of its lexicon and the extent of its influence on its Arabic counterpart.